Until dynamic tuner sharing gets figured out, I'm leaving one mini in full standby to free up the 3rd tuner on the Q.

I don't understand this. Since tuner allocation is not dynamic and you control it on the Q it doesn't matter if Mini is active, in standby, unplugged, whatever right? i.e. Once you allocate 2 tuners from the Q for Minis those tuners are not available for recording no matter what you do with the Minis. That's my understanding of it.

Thanks for pointing back to the "tens of thousands" comment from the recent waiver request. Since the Elite launched in January, 2012, TiVo has added approximately 120k gross adds (Premieres). I'm guessing that a 3rd of those are 4-tuner boxes so we have a base of only 40k boxes. I suspect 15 percent of those users would buy one Mini (6,000) and another 5 percent would by 2 Minis (4,000). So 10,000 Minis sold to existing users. For new TiVo purchasers, I suspect at least 50 percent will opt for a 4-tuner box (~15,000/qtr - 60,000/yr) and 30 percent (on average) would buy a Mini (4,500/qtr - 18,000/yr).

Bottom-line is a I agree that my 10k per quarter is aggressive and would require a significant uptick in retail sales volume.

Ah, interesting. It's definitely aggressive but thanks for showing the math. If there weren't fees tied to the Mini I'd be more optimistic. Not that it'll do poorly, in fact I think it'll be highly desirable once the early kinks are worked out. But I think they'd have to sell it aggressively by absorbing most or all of the service fee in a bundle deal to push that kind of potential. I hope they do.

I don't understand this. Since tuner allocation is not dynamic and you control it on the Q it doesn't matter if Mini is active, in standby, unplugged, whatever right? i.e. Once you allocate 2 tuners from the Q for Minis those tuners are not available for recording no matter what you do with the Minis. That's my understanding of it.

I think he's saying that he's sharing that one dedicated tuner between his 2 Mini's.

I think he's saying that he's sharing that one dedicated tuner between his 2 Mini's.

OK, but still not necessary to put 1 Mini in Standy mode. Just leaving the Mini on anything else but live TV should suffice (and it will go into screensaver mode). Unless the issue is that if the Mini is in any mode other than standby it will insist on consuming a tuner no matter what. But I don't think so since allocating 0 tuners from the Q is a valid setting which means Mini doesn't require a tuner to operate.

if 0 tuners allocated to the pool then no mini can access live tv... if 1 tuner allocated to the pool then only one mini can access live tv at any given time, if 2 tuners allocated then two minis can access live tv at any given time. Any tuners allocated to the pool are not available for recording regardless of what state any networked mini may be in. You can have any number of minis connected (but only 2 maximum can stream live tv).

if 0 tuners allocated to the pool then no mini can access live tv... if 1 tuner allocated to the pool then only one mini can access live tv at any given time, if 2 tuners allocated then two minis can access live tv at any given time. Any tuners allocated to the pool are not available for recording regardless of what state any networked mini may be in. You can have any number of minis connected (but only 2 maximum can stream live tv).

I think you're correct on most if not all counts. However, I think what the recent chain of posts was addressing was the fact that if you allocate 1 tuner to Minis for live TV, multiple Minis can use that tuner (just not at the same time).

And I don't think that "any number" of Minis can be connected, but I think that the number is greater than 2.

I saw this pop-up on my Series 2DT last night, but I couldn't glean much info from what was shown there. I had a similar concern with Tivo, all of the sudden, packaging "Whole Home" bundles without the Mini did not bode well for a near-term Mini launch.

I think you're correct on most if not all counts. However, I think what the recent chain of posts was addressing was the fact that if you allocate 1 tuner to Minis for live TV, multiple Minis can use that tuner (just not at the same time).

And I don't think that "any number" of Minis can be connected, but I think the the number is greater than 2.

I think this post from Spotterman demonstrates the answer to your question(s) or at least some of the question.

I think you're correct on most if not all counts. However, I think what the recent chain of posts was addressing was the fact that if you allocate 1 tuner to Minis for live TV, multiple Minis can use that tuner (just not at the same time).

And I don't think that "any number" of Minis can be connected, but I think the the number is greater than 2.

I was probably a bit optimistic about the "any number"... it will be limited by the number of streams (live and pre-recorded) that the host tivo is willing/able to distribute (to minis and/or other premieres) at any given time.

TiVo sold 30,000 Premiere boxes at retail last quarter (10/31/2012). I can easily see TiVo sell 10,000 Retail Mini's per quarter after launch. I expect there will be an initial bump in Mini sales to fulfill demand associated with existing Premiere 4/XL4 owners. This also doesn't account for a possible increase in retail demand now that a viable whole home solution is available.

TiVo doesn't disclose the mix of Premiere SKUs. TiVo did disclose that the mix of 4-tuners versus 2-tuners improved resulting in less hardware subsidy for the quarter. Going forward especially with a retail Mini, I expect that at least 50% of the boxes sold at retail with be 4-tuner boxes -- hence my 15,000 / qtr estimate.

In reality, TiVo could easily sell the Mini at retail without a subscription fee. The problem with that model is the way TiVo is forced to account for Mini's from a Financial Accounting Standards Board (FASB) perspective. If TiVo sells the TiVo Mini without a subscription, they would only be able to count a Mini box as hardware revenue. On the other hand, if the Mini provides recurring monthly revenue or lifetime revenue amortized over 66 months, then TiVo can count each Mini box as a retail TiVo subscriber. In other words, TiVo maximizes the value of the company by charging some sort of nominal recurring fee for the TiVo Mini. IMHO, this is the primary reason TiVo is charging a recurring subscription fee for the Mini.

Fine, give me the box for free when I buy a $200 lifetime sub. Problem solved. Dumbest accounting ever, but that's what this sort of thing is worth, it doesn't really matter what the breakdown is. Just like TiVo Premieres are really $650-$900, even though they have this sort of fake cost breakdown that's irrelevant, as you have to buy both in order to use the thing.

Quote:

Originally Posted by atmuscarella

You appear to have been around a long time - so you should be very familiar with how TiVo charges for their DVRs it has been the same since the beginning (having separate hardware and service charges). Having TiVo do the same thing with the Mini shouldn't really be all that surprising. Pay TV providers and cell phone companies do the same thing - move some or all of the hardware costs to on going monthly fees, at least with TiVo you can pay everything upfront and be done with it.

Yes, that's true, I have been around for a while. However, it makes no sense to have fees for individual minis, except maybe in the sense that the cable company does the same thing and TiVo is better (so they would have to equal or meet the $0 up-front, $10/mo fee structure that cable cos use). However, from a consumer electronics perspective, the fees are for the service. The Mini doesn't have service, as it's basically just a thin client for a Premiere 4 or XL4 that already has service.

Quote:

Originally Posted by atmuscarella

Actually in the US what a TV is, is legally defined. In the US for something to be legally be called a TV it has to have tuners built into it that can receive television broadcasts, so no your computer monitor is not a TV and neither is your tablet. That is why when some manufactures left tuners out of their early HD devices they couldn't call them a TV but had to refer to them has monitors.

However your point is well taken that in the context of a mini it can transmit a signal to any displace device with the correct input and it is really irrelevant if the device is a TV or not.

A TV is irrelevant for pay TV, as all they can do is ATSC-8VSB or Clear QAM. Analog NTSC doesn't exist anymore (except in a few backwater small cable companies that are still living in the past), and U-Verse and Satellite don't use QAM at all, so it's all about boxes. Those boxes can attach to about anything. That, and TV LCD panels are the same ones they are using on monitors, they just throw slightly different ports and plastic cases on them.

Quote:

Originally Posted by sbiller

At $6/mo TiVo could easily sell this box at $99 (subsidized) and have a reasonable ROIC.

Why would that be subsidized? It should be $99 at a profit. If they charge more, good for them for making money, and being in line with MCE extenders ($180-$200ish), but there is no reason they would be losing money on a box that is little more than a Roku or Apple TV with different software on it, and a slightly different port configuration.

Quote:

Originally Posted by sbiller

#3 is not necessarily true. I suspect that Comcast will still try to charge an additional outlet fee to light the Mini box up with XFINITY On Demand.

Keep in mind that the average home in the US has 2.5 set top boxes. My speculation is that the average TiVo home has 1 TiVo box and 1.5 cable operator supplied boxes.

Is there such a thing as a "free" cable box any more? FiOS charges $6.99 for a DTA...

How can they? What they would probably do is limit XoD to one tuner on the Premiere at a time, even if multiple tuners were available. Actually, I doubt the software on the Premiere is even set up to control more than one XoD stream anyways.

Although they were rare, some people had done setups with SageTV with cable boxes that were component re-captured, which would support running XoD as "live TV" or you could even extrapolate this out to whole-house HDMI matrix systems that can move XoD streams around from one box... the key is that you only get one XoD stream per box fee, so they will likely do the same for the Premieres and Minis... it will probably be FCFS.

I just finished the online dealer meeting For the TiVo Mini. I was told I could repeat all the info I learned, so here goes.

TiVo Mini Launch: March 6, 2013 (yes this year!)

Pricing: $99.99 Monthly: $5.99 or Lifetime: $149.99

Dimensions: 6.12" w 1.25" h

Tuners & Streaming:

Each Premiere 4-tuner model will currently support 2 Mini's. You can have more than one DVR on the system to increase your Mini allotment, and each Mini can access content from any DVR on the network -- even 2 tuner models. However, the Mini's are always paired to the same 4 tuner DVR for live tuner access.

2nd Quarter 2013: Dynamic Tuner Allocation. You'll be able to pair up to 9 Mini's to a single DVR. Each DVR will support up to 4 Mini streams simultaneously.

Miscellaneous:

There will be a Moca bridge available at launch. Looks pretty easy to hook up.

The Mini has mounting holes on the back for wall mounting. If the Mini is mounted behind a TV, there will be an IR extender available that connects to the Mini's USB port.

I just finished the online dealer meeting For the TiVo Mini. I was told I could repeat all the info I learned, so here goes.

TiVo Mini Launch: March 6, 2013 (yes this year!)

Pricing: $99.99 Monthly: $5.99 or Lifetime: $149.99

Dimensions: 6.12" w 1.25" h

Tuners & Streaming:

Each Premiere 4-tuner model will currently support 2 Mini's. You can have more than one DVR on the system to increase your Mini allotment, and each Mini can access content from any DVR on the network -- even 2 tuner models. However, the Mini's are always paired to the same 4 tuner DVR for live tuner access.

2nd Quarter 2013: Dynamic Tuner Allocation. You'll be able to pair up to 9 Mini's to a single DVR. Each DVR will support up to 4 Mini streams simultaneously.

Miscellaneous:

There will be a Moca bridge available at launch. Looks pretty easy to hook up.

The Mini has mounting holes on the back for wall mounting. If the Mini is mounted behind a TV, there will be an IR extender available that connects to the Mini's USB port.

It will be interesting to see if there is a discount on the mini's lifetime service price for those eligible for multi-service discounts, as well as if TiVo plans to sell a bundle with an XL4 and a pair of minis.

It will be interesting to see if there is a discount on the mini's lifetime service price for those eligible for multi-service discounts, as well as if TiVo plans to sell a bundle with an XL4 and a pair of minis.

Unless I'm missing something, wouldn't every Mini owner by definition be eligible for multi-service discount? So, the price is the price.

So looks like option to use with only a 2 tuner unit as the host (without live tv capability of course) is not going to be available any time soon if ever.
Pricing is actually better than I expected at $250, which means a few months after release can drop down to close to $200 range via online retailers which is my threshold. Depending on feedback even at $250 I may consider it since I already have an Elite anyway. What would really get my attention is if Mini is very speedy using HDUI and Flash apps - that means I could relegate sluggish Elite to a headless unit and use the Mini on that TV.